What's your story?

I apologize if there is already a thread for this but I couldn't find it.
I was curious to find out what folks' photography background is, and most importantly how they ended up in the m4/3 camp for equipment!

For myself, I've been serious about my photography for about 10 years now. I was always a Nikon shooter, who slowly upgraded through the dSLR line (and usually stayed 1 generation behind and bought used).

I'm primarily a hobbiest. I teach a beginners crash course in photography basics as an after hours course through my workplace, and occaisionally did some portraits and weddings when time allowed. But my wife owns her own business which has really taken off the past couple years, and I have 3 kids under age 9, so I rarely have time to go out and shoot unless it's of them.

One day I took my kids to an indoor playground and saw someone with a gf3 and 14mm. I knew of the m4/3 cameras but never really paid too much attention to them. I decided to look into one for a travel camera as I had sold my canon s95 due to never liking the controls.

The rest is history. I went on a trip, my d700 never left my bag, and sold it soon after for an OMD. No regrets at all!

Had I not run into that person with the m4/3 camera, I would still have my d700 which was rarely with me anymore!

One of my best friends was very much into digital photography, and I always wanted to do so aswell, but balked at the initial outlay. I put off getting a digital camera until by chance I saw EPL-1s on Amazon at an amazing price. I impulsively bought it and have enjoyed every second of it. I've learned to accept and adapt to it's shortcomings and the fact it looks like a toy in my hands. I keep trying to justify replacing it with a newer body but I'm so far off the point where I'm no longer the weakest link in my photos that it doesn't make sense to. So for now, I'm sticking with my (admittedly effeminate) white EPL-1.

Bought a camera (my first one, I think, since I used my dad's OM-4 back in the day) when I went to China in 2005 or thereabouts, a little Sony Cybershot. Came back with hundreds of grim pictures and a few that people said were good (ones from unusual perspectives, and ones featuring lots of shadow).

Was looking for something to do while in a relationship I wasn't having a great time in, so spent a fortune on Canon 30D and a variety of lenses (10-22, 50, 60 macro, 18-75, 70-300) and figured out how photography actually works in terms of the physics of light getting to the sensor. Started to really enjoy it, then rediscovered mountaineering and hillwalking. SLR stuff is too bulky to take up into the mountains in any sort of quantity, so I ditched it all and went to the Canon G12 because of its manual controls, decent image quality and diminutive size. I had convinced myself that I wasn't bothered about creative images, depth of field or anything like that..

..but that only lasted a year. More and more people were asking me to do portraiture for them like I used to do with the SLR and the G12 just wasn't up to it. In addition, I was missing depth of field for its own sake so I did a bit of research.

I'm still climbing mountains so SLRs are still a no, and I have many and varied theories about how the SLR market is being artificially kept alive to sell glass which was designed years and years ago. I decided on mirrorless and narrowed it down to Sony NEX or M43. Went with M43 because I used Olympus back in the film days (and I don't like the lack of buttons on Sony NEXs). I got a great deal on an E-PL3 (being primarily a landscape shooter, I didn't feel the need for the fuller manual controls of the E-P3 and I knew the image quality was identical), and now that the primes have started to arrive, the image quality has picked up phenomenally and I'm really impressed with what it can do.

I still take pictures which feature lots of shadow. Most other things have moved on

I'd had SLRs when younger (note: no 'D'!) but never had the time or money to pursue the hobby. I love to travel but don't like carrying lots of gear, so I never really considered a big camera. Then I read about this small exchangable-lens camera called the E-PL1 and I made an impulse purchase. It's been love at first sight, and as I've become more involved in photography again I remember why I love it so: it makes me look more carefully at the world around me and appreciate all I see. I may never be a good (or even decent) photographer, but I don't care--it's the process as much as the result.

Before jumping in bed with the MFT, I had some pretty horrible compact cameras (digital and non-digital) earlier but other than that, I really didn't have any shooting experience. However, I had always liked taking photos. Maybe it was the financial investment that had prevented me from starting the hobby.

Last year I started getting some more money and decided to jump in. A proficient photographer friend suggested that I look into Micro Four Thirds. I also had one friend who owned an E-PL1. After pondering it for a while (I usually tend to overthink this kind of decisions) I went with E-PL2. After a few months I bought the Panasonic 20 mm and never looked back. Okay, I sometimes wonder how it would feel to have a bulkier camera, but in the summer I upgraded to OM-D.

Currently I try to keep my camera with me most of the time. I've got a good lens collection (14mm, 20mm, 45mm) and I intend to expand on that. I often visit video game related events here and abroad, so having fast lenses and compact camera come in handy. I think it's great to have some photo documentation from all the gatherings and alike. Hopefully I'll expand my comfort zone a little bit and manage to do some other shooting in the future as well, like street shooting for example.